The announcement follows the bombshell report in Pennsylvania confirming more widespread sexual abuse by priests across the state than had been previously revealed.
Photograph: Jason Cohn/Reuters

Missouri is launching an investigation of potential sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic archdiocese of St Louis, the state attorney general, Josh Hawley, said on Thursday.

The announcement follows the bombshell report in Pennsylvania confirming even more widespread sexual abuse by priests across the state than had been previously revealed. Hawley said his office does not have the power to force institutions to cooperate with criminal investigations but was able to launch the inquiry after the archdiocese agreed to help.

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“They say they want to cooperate fully and I’m confident they will,” Hawley told reporters on a conference call.

The inquiry initially covers only the archdiocese of St Louis, surrounding the state’s second largest city and one of five Roman Catholic dioceses in Missouri, Hawley said. He asked the bishops of the four other dioceses to agree to cooperate with the investigation.

Pennsylvania officials earlier this month released the results of a two-year grand jury investigation that found evidence that at least 1,000 people, mostly children, had been sexually abused by some 300 clergymen in the state during the past 70 years. The report said the numbers of actual victims and abusers could be much higher. It was the latest milestone in the state after a grand jury report more than two years ago found a history of monstrous abuse and cover-up in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese. At the time, it emerged that other Pennsylvania dioceses were also under fresh investigation, in the biggest exposure of systemic abuse, collusion and cover-up in the growing scandal since similar abuse was uncovered in Massachusetts by the Boston Globe’s investigative journalists almost two decades ago.

Similar reports have emerged in Europe, Australia and Chile, prompting lawsuits and investigations, sending dioceses into bankruptcy and undercutting the moral authority of the leadership of the Catholic church, which has some 1.2 billion members around the world.